Aileen White outside her home that was being used as a location set for the film "Boychoir," staring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek at 14 Lanark Rd., Stamford, Conn., Thursday night, March 6, 2014. The film could be the last big-budget feature film to shoot in Connecticut for a while as the state has terminated its tax credit program for movies.

Aileen White outside her home that was being used as a location set...

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Aileen White inside her home that was converted into a location set for the film "Boychoir," staring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek at 14 Lanark Rd., Stamford, Conn., Thursday night, March 6, 2014. The film could be the last big-budget feature film to shoot in Connecticut for a while as the state has terminated its tax credit program for movies.

Aileen White inside her home that was converted into a location set...

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A Kaufman Astoria Studios trailer that is part of the production for the film "Boychoir," staring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek on Shippan Avenue near the location set at 14 Lanark Rd., Stamford, Conn., Thursday night, March 6, 2014. The film could be the last big-budget feature film to shoot in Connecticut for a while as the state has terminated its tax credit program for movies.

The film set area of the drama "Boychoir," staring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek at 14 Lanark Rd., Stamford, Conn., Thursday night, March 6, 2014. The film could be the last big-budget feature film to shoot in Connecticut for a while as the state has terminated its tax credit program for movies.

A trailer that is part of the production for the film "Boychoir," staring Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates and Sissy Spacek on Shippan Avenue near the location set at 14 Lanark Rd., Stamford, Conn., Thursday night, March 6, 2014. The film could be the last big-budget feature film to shoot in Connecticut for a while as the state has terminated its tax credit program for movies.

Spectators look through a doorway to watch as Boychoir is filmed at...

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Electrical crew member Greg Baney moves a light during the filming of the feature-length movie "Boychoir" at the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center in Old Greenwich, Conn., on Monday, March 10, 2014. According to the production company's website "Boychoir" will star Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates. "Boychoir" may be the last feature film to be shot in Connecticut, the state has recently terminated its tax credit program for movies.

Crew members and extras wait for the next shot during the filming of the feature-length movie "Boychoir" at the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center in Old Greenwich, Conn., on Monday, March 10, 2014. According to the production company's website "Boychoir" will star Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates. "Boychoir" may be the last feature film to be shot in Connecticut, the state has recently terminated its tax credit program for movies.

Electrical crew member Matthew Mendelson works during the filming of the feature-length movie "Boychoir" at the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center in Old Greenwich, Conn., on Monday, March 10, 2014. According to the production company's website "Boychoir" will star Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates. "Boychoir" may be the last feature film to be shot in Connecticut, the state has recently terminated its tax credit program for movies.

A bank of high-powered lights shine through the outside windows of the Eastern Greenwich Civic Center during the filming of the feature-length movie "Boychoir" in Old Greenwich, Conn., on Monday, March 10, 2014. According to the production company's website "Boychoir" will star Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates. "Boychoir" may be the last feature film to be shot in Connecticut, the state has recently terminated its tax credit program for movies.

GREENWICH --There's still snow on the ground outside the Greenwich Civic Center, but here in the building's old gymnasium it's as hot as Hollywood.

"I'm trying to get Debbie and Dustin in one shot," says Dee Fargo, giddily pointing her smartphone's camera toward a large film set.

Nearby, movie stars Dustin Hoffman and Debra Winger are reciting lines before a collection of lights, cameras and some 200 youth actors -- including Fargo's 13-year-old son, who's playing an extra. It's a key scene in the forthcoming movie "Boychoir," in which a troubled Texas teen gets rescued in the ranks of a prestigious Princeton, N.J., choral group.

Between takes, Hoffman glances Fargo's way, causing her to practically swoon. But she can still only see Winger's back. "C'mon, c'mon, chickey. Walk towards me," she says.

Instead, she reels in a perturbed production staffer. "No photographs!" the man snaps.

Come spring, when "Boychoir" wraps up its filming here, there will be one less chance to catch Hollywood stars on Connecticut turf. Since the state last summer put a two-year hold on a 30-percent tax credit for feature films -- in hopes of bolstering the state's TV and digital media sectors instead -- requests by movie producers to operate here have plummeted, state officials say.

To be sure, "Boychoir" won't be the last act. Nine other movies were cleared for tax credits before the program was edited out of the state budget that began last July 1, but have yet to film. Still, several of those projects will probably never get through fundraising, and others are by comparison low-budget affairs and feature lesser-known talent. The result: Until the moratorium for feature-film tax credits ends in July 2015 -- assuming state officials let it -- the prospect of having Dustin Hoffman step onto a film set near you likely won't be a coming attraction.

Desired effect?

"The phone isn't ringing right now," says George Norfleet, director of the Department of Economic and Community Development's office for film, TV and digital media, when asked to gauge the film industry's interest level in Connecticut. "The legislation has achieved its effect."

That's been fine for the likes of Stamford-based WWE and Bristol-based ESPN, which have both capitalized on Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's preference for the small screen by expanding their digital offerings. Yet for many on the set of "Boychoir" -- where staffers are generally clad in plaid shirts, blue jeans and earpieces; and can be found scrambling around the set with microphones and cameras, barking orders like so many skinny football coaches -- there's a sense that Connecticut has given them the boot.

"Now I have to drive all the way to Brooklyn," says Jon Franklin, a 52-year-old medic from Stratford, who in recent years has found steady work treating injuries on Connecticut film sets. With big projects here on the wane, he's taken a job on the set of HBO's "The Knick," which forces him to drive 160 miles round trip each day -- enduring traffic, tolls and more frequent gasoline fill-ups. With a hint of wistfulness, he describes losing his familiar 25-mile trip to Stamford. "I'd like to see the tax credit come back," he says.

So would Will Sepulveda, who operates the "EW Crafty" food-and-beverage service stand with his wife, Eva. Their Portchester, N.Y.-based company has spent a dozen years keeping movie stars, production staff and extras hydrated and fed. Last year, they labored at two movie sets in Connecticut, among other places in the tri-state area, and barely had a day off. This year, Sepulveda had no steady work until "Boychoir" began filming on Feb. 24.

"I hadn't done anything," he says, using his cellphone to call up EW Crafty's resume on the Internet Movie Database. With obvious pride, he scrolls through all 12 feature films his company has serviced in Connecticut -- from "Reservation Road," which filmed in 2007 and starred Joaquin Phoenix, to "And So It Goes," which filmed last summer and starred Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.

Slumping on a wood table in the center's hallway, as a half-dozen teenage actors swarm his station, Sepulveda shakes his head. "Down to every bottle of water, I have to buy everything in Connecticut," he says. "Who says this isn't bringing money to the state?"

For one thing, politicians are -- or at least they argued last summer that films don't bring enough of it. In defending the move, prominent Republicans and Democrats alike argued that TV and digital media outlets are more likely to create permanent jobs here and actually build infrastructure. By contrast, feature films often entail crews parachuting into the state for just weeks at a time, they said. Indeed, such films have brought the state $504 million in revenue since 2006, according to the DECD, while TV and digital outlets have brought in $997 million.

Of course, not everything is easily priced. And luring out-of-state talent, if only for a few days, has its own currency.

American Boychoir

On the Greenwich Civic Center film set, as a couple dozen teenage boys in sports coats and khakis climb onto a set of low bleachers, an elderly Greenwich woman watching from a doorway expresses dismay. The boys, she's learned, have been bused up this morning from New Jersey.

"Why'd they have to go to Princeton to find a choir of boys in blue jackets?" she asks, declining to share her name with a reporter. "We have several private schools in this town with wonderful boys' choirs of their own."

Once the students of the prestigious American Boychoir School start singing, though, the woman's face lights up. It lights up even more when Dustin Hoffman himself strolls past, causing the woman to reach back in her memory to the actor's 1967 film "The Graduate."

"Yoo hoo!" she calls out, as Hoffman prepares for what could be one of his final takes in Connecticut for at least a while. "Where's Mrs. Robinson?"